'The
Power of Nightmares’ is a compelling BBC documentary written
and produced by Adam Curtis. As powerful as it is, it contains some
footage that I wish I hadn’t seen, as it was truly nightmarish itself.
Nine or ten men are bound with their arms above their heads against a
prison wall. Then they are savagely whipped. They scream as bloody
wounds are opened on their backs. At the end of it their backs are
smeared by their tormentors with animal fat (I naively thought it was
water) and then are shoved into cells to which ravenous attack dogs are
introduced, presumably to eat them alive. In the film we are spared
viewing this spectacle, but we can hear their horrible screams. This was
Nasser’s Egypt. There is no reason to believe anything is different
under Mubarak. Both good friends of America. When Nasser was asked if
torture took place in Egypt under his regime, he very coolly denied that
any such thing would be tolerated. He appeared irritated at the
question. The nerve to even ask!

It was the same with the Shah of Iran. ‘Of course we don’t torture
people,’ he said, ‘we don’t have to.’ Of course Mr. Pahlavi was lying
through his teeth, and his torture methods were taught to the feared and
loathsome Savak secret police by America itself.

The central
premise of ‘The Power of Nightmares’ is that fear can be used by
unscrupulous leaders as a potent tool to manipulate a gullible
population and to concentrate power. Fear can command consent like
nothing else. In the end, as we have witnessed, it would seem that
nothing is more powerful than peoples’ need for perceived security, even
if it is false. Thus non-existent Iraqi WMD’s, Condi’s magic mushroom
clouds, some anthrax that came from government labs (and which source
has proved as elusive as Osama), World Trade Center buildings that fell
as a result of controlled demolitions thus pointing to US Government
involvement (didn’t the PNAC people pray for a ‘Pearl Harbor event’?),
and the Constitution is in tatters. People are being spied upon.
Innocent people are being held extra-judiciously. People are being
tortured. Well, the Constitution is only a goddam piece of paper, isn’t
it?. Like the Bible. Toilet paper.

The fear factor goes back quite a ways. Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld
were onto it as early as 1974. Whatever the foibles and criminal
failings and of Tricky Dick Nixon, he did have an eye for the
dramatic and grand diplomatic scheme (i.e. his approach to China) and in
that year he achieved an unprecedented treaty with the USSR. “With
this step,” he said, “we have enhanced the security of both
nations. We have begun to reduce the level of fear, by reducing the
causes of fear—for our two peoples, and for all peoples in the world."
This did not sit well with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and
President Ford’s Chief of Staff Dick Cheney, who claimed, against all
evidence that the Soviet Union had secret weapons that the president
didn’t know about, the CIA didn’t know about –no one knew about these
amazing weapons of mass destruction except for Rumsfeld and Cheney. The
lack of evidence of their existence was used as proof of their reality.
They would later use the same absurd argument regarding Iraq. They
insisted that billions of dollars should be diverted from social
programs to the military, and that’s exactly what happened after Nixon
was forced to resign. The phony cold war continued, and anyone who
questioned it was labeled a traitor. Just like now. Support our troops.
Shouldn’t the government support the troops with proper equipment and
medical care, or by bringing them home since the reasons for the
invasion were all lies?

I’m always amazed at American hostility toward the French which could
only be as the result of massive willful ignorance on the part of
America (no surprise there—myth has long since supplanted meaning in
American polity). ‘Surrender monkeys,’ some of you call them. But I seem
to recall a vigorous and brave resistance movement involving men and
women willing to put their lives on the line to counter the brutal Nazis
onslaught in any way they could. Many were captured and tortured to
death, while America stood idly by, only joining the war after the
Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor made it impossible not to. I notice no
counterpart to the Resistance in America in defense of the Constitution,
in reaction to stolen elections, the suspension of habeas corpus, the
commission of heinous war crimes and crimes against humanity in
Afghanistan and Iraq, and (it’s hard to even write this) the
implementation of ‘extraordinary renditions’ and torture, which
virtually all experts agree is useless as a method of extracting useful
information., meaning that America indulges in brutish sadism for its
own sake. Just like Nasser. Just like the Shah. Torture! For shame!

When the
French government proposes some boneheaded measure against the interests
of young workers, there they are in the tens or hundreds of thousands in
the streets, and they won’t go away until the government relents. And if
you’re the government you better not provoke French farmers, or you’ll
have a real and sustained fight on your hands. They’re not afraid to get
bloody to defend what they believe in. What do Americans do in response
to even more egregious insults to their dignity and civil rights? Well,
they go and shop at Wal-Mart. Freedom fries, anyone? It’s not only
French Cabernet Sauvignon that got poured down the gutters by gutless
American politicians. It was also America’s pride.

Or was it?
It’s hard to imagine how a proud nation could surrender its soul without
so much as a whimper. Does it matter that crimes can be proven against
America’s leaders? How is it so easy to devolve from Christianity to
snarling dogs and sodomy committed against young imprisoned boys, to
massacres and murders, the use of white phosphorous and depleted uranium
(which by now has poisoned the whole world and which will remain
radioactive for over four billion years)? How do you jump from bible
thumping Jesus rhetoric to wicked cruelty and carnage in the blink of an
eye, unless you never really believed in anything to begin with? Land of
the free and home of the brave? Give me a break. Oh yes—over fifty
percent of Americans persist in believing that Saddam was behind 9-11,
when they should be looking a whole lot closer to home. Another large
percentage believe that Israel’s swinish and murderous behavior toward
the Palestinians and now the residents of Beirut will somehow speed the
second coming of Christ. Who could admire such a cretinous Christ, I
wonder, except the neo-cons in his snarling image .

The world
can’t afford for a nation as powerful as America to be so delusional or
indifferent to its own fate. ‘Surrender monkeys’? Look in the mirror,
s’il vous plait. America has become the world’s most dangerous rogue
nation while its citizens mythologize and snooze. The criminals
(including those in the White House) need to be brought to justice, the
neo-con nasties need to be deprived of power once and for all, and the
religious nuts need to be labeled just what they are. Dangerously,
delusionally nuts. America needs to get a life back, or there is no
telling where this will end. But it won’t be in heaven, that’s for sure.

“A
woman in a red-patterned dress lay crumpled and lifeless in the broken
masonry. A leg poked out from the shattered concrete nearby. A medic
carried a dead child in his arms from the rubble. Other children lay
dead in the streets.” Reuters; scenes form the Israeli attack at
Qana

Nations are like people; ultimately they return to the habits with which
they feel most comfortable. In Israel’s case, the infrequent periods of
peace typically end with a return to the familiar pattern of war crimes
and human rights abuse. Last night was no different.